lost in translation
by occasionallyawriter
Summary: Maybe we got lost in translation, lost in the past. Caught in a moment that would never truly last. M is dead, but some of the dead are always alive. Vesper bargains with death to let her live, correct her past by finding him.
1. Fate or just coincidence

It was late January, her son was at school and she was at work. It was still in that bitterly cool stage of British winter where you never knew if snow or rain was contained in the overcast skies. Charlie always hoped for snow but in Britain, winter never promised such weather.

She paid no attention to her employees huddled round a TV in the staffroom as she got her coffee the afternoon, only pushing through the small gathering when she heard the familiar tone of Sophie Rayworth from BBC News at one. "The investigation is underway on the possible cyber-attack on the British Secret Service at their base Vauxhall cross..." She continued the report, drawing Vesper closer to the TV screen. Her heart was racing, was he okay, was M okay?

On the screen Vauxhall cross was shown spewing thick plumes of smoke from its upper levels where the bomb had obviously gone off. "Reports of 4 dead and many taken to the hospitals from the scene to treat injuries shortly after the explosion."

She stood, completely dumbfounded as the news continued on to the next headline. James rarely spent any time at Vauxhall cross, only to get missions or verbal warnings from M because of things he had done on missions. M still worked there though, the woman who had given her an opportunity to have a life of raising her son, as well as hundreds of Mi6 employees.

She had no clue that at the exact same time in Turkey, James Bond was watching the same news story play out. The same headline that was putting her life into a churning mess was assembling his back together. It would be the one thing that would bring him back from the dead, and eventually back into her life.

She waited, hours after she had put her son to bed that night for a call from M. Nothing. She left a message on the number M had given her when she moved to Cambridge. Nothing.

Watching the breakfast news a few days after whilst she made her son's breakfast she saw why, the woman was being brought under scrutiny for the security breach. They wanted to find out who was responsible for the terrorist attack and assumed she had the answer. M had more important things to sort out than answering a message.

She read the list of names in the Times Obituaries after she had read Charlie's bedtime story and knew he was asleep. She scanned them. Once. Twice. Relief flooded her as her brain finally registered the lack of a James Bond in the section. He was still alive, well as far as she knew he was.

As Winter turned into Spring, the names were released, they trickled through the media as rain trickled through the small canopy of leaves a few trees provided in early March. The undercover agents were executed, he wasn't though. She took her son to school, watching him run into the classroom before she left, she worked. She automatically checked the news now, she read of the public inquiry being held in Trinity Square due to the public pressure of the head of Mi6. Someone needed to be blamed. M was the obvious Scapegoat since they had no perpetrator.

Then the horrifying reports were released of a Terrorist attack on the underground, 3 people dead due to an explosion which caused the train to derail. She learned of the many fatalities, none of them being MI6 officials though. Namely the train driver and a few security guards.

Then there was silence. Too much silence, the calm before the storm. Vesper couldn't dwell on it though, she had a life to get on with. She worked, played with her son Charlie, read to him, fed him, walked him to school. This was her life, it didn't revolve around MI6. It couldn't revolve around it, she had a son after all.

No perpetrator was caught; no news fuelled the story as it was laid to rest. The trail had gone cold as the weather grew mild. That was until she caught a part of a News segment whilst she cleaned the sitting room, putting her son's toys away. The boy in question sat by the coffee table, colouring in as a wind down activity before bedtime.

"Mallory has been instated as the head of the secret service, Olivia Mansfield died last month at the age of 65." Vesper had no recognition of the name but the photo that accompanied it showed a woman she knew very well. M.

She was dead.

Vesper froze in shock falling onto the sofa behind her, as her son looked up with a frown from the cushion he was sitting on. The reporter went on as her ever inquisitive son stood up and sat next to her on the sofa.

"Mummy, what's wrong?" Wide blue eyes stared up at her from where he was nestled into her side, eyes so full of concern at her reaction to the man on the telly.

"Nothing darling." She murmured, pulling him into her arms and kissing his forehead as she ran her fingers through his blond hair. "I'm okay, why don't you show me what you've been colouring and then we can read a bit before bed." She smiled, trying to process the news report that was long over.

Somehow Vesper managed to walk her son through his bedtime routine, reading him 2 chapters of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.

Her son, so innocent and untainted by the world he was born into. He was only in reception now but soon he would learn more at school. Ask more questions. Where is daddy mummy? Why don't I have a daddy?

James. He was out there, the thought of him made her emotional and panicked over what to do. Was it fear, dread, anticipation - she didn't know what she felt anymore. She didn't even know if he was alive, his superior was dead so what concrete evidence suggested he was still living.

As she got up the following morning and got her son ready for school, she could only hope that the stern looking Malory would be too preoccupied with the shakeup of the secret service to keep an eye on her. Who says he had even found her file? Hurrying into work, she watched the bustling streets of central Cambridge to see if any eyes followed her.

No phone calls. No one keeping an eye on them. Weeks flew by as the weather grew warmer, Charlie's birthday loomed and he was as energetic as ever. Running, jumping as he rambled on about his day to her when they played in the small garden.

She made sure her son was her priority, that he monopolized her time so she didn't think of James. It had been 5 years since she 'died', who knew if he even remembered her. Sometimes the mischievous grin, the James smile as she called it, would appear on Charlie's face and made her want to drop everything. She could take her son to London, find his father so he could have a family. It was frivolous and so unlike her, but she wanted the best for Charlie, for him to know his father.

Some might even call it fate when her boss had called her into his office that afternoon, James was still right after all these years about her aloof nature in the workplace. People thought her to be arrogant, that her prickly shell gave her an heir of superiority. That was why even when she had a 5 year old son, people thought her to be unapproachable. She had no work friends. She had Charlie, Maria their nanny and a couple of parents from the school. Her boss was offering her a transfer, a promotion to their main office in London. She told him she would think about it but she already knew her answer. Charlie was young enough to move and not be completely uprooted by it. He was young enough for his curious nature to not question where his daddy was. It was time to move.

It was time to find James bond.


	2. Moving and sighting

He was four, she shouldn't have been so nervous about telling him that they were moving. She had 2 options of how he would react, a temper tantrum, which was most popular to children his age after all they had to do something when they didn't get their way. Then again he was quite a joyful child, very mature despite his young age due to his inquisitive nature. He was always asking her about snippets of adult conversation he had heard on the walk home from school with Emma, his nanny.

He was practically a duplicate of his father with his sandy hair and piercing blue eyes, she even found his small sticky out ears oddly endearing with how much they reminded her of james. James. His father. The man who at some point in the near future Charlie would actually meet, a wistful part of her even half wished that they would somehow make it work as a family so she and james could have the future they wished of all those years ago. Even if God felt she and James didn't deserve the chance, their untainted son deserved the chance to know his dad.

She informed her son of their upcoming move and he took it with excitement, only after she promised he could still go to Sam's pirate party in 2 weeks even though they would be moving soon after.

The company was providing her with a fully furnished terrace house in Harrow so it was only a short tube ride into the inner city, and with the ample salary her job had provided her for years she could afford to send her son to the local prep school, Orley farm. Everything was settling into place easily, almost too easily. MI6 was still in total disarray, she had to have hope that this relaxed move into the city of spies could go by undetected.

"Ma mère, when we move can we go to parks and museums with cars and have Sam stay with us?" Charlie asked all in a single breath over breakfast a week before they were due to move.

"Of course Mon petit garçon." She smiled, sipping her black un-English as she surveyed the boxes that Charlie had made into a fort earlier.

"The science one and the dino one we went to last time we went to London?" He beamed, making his mother smile with his contagious charm and happiness.

"Of course, and no we won't go to the one I Iike near it with the naked statues and girly things." She laughed reading my as she recalled her little man's reaction to the v and a. She would miss Cambridge with its quaint charm and endless green spaces for her son to play on, parkers piece where he learned to ride a bike. Their kitchen where he said his first word. Him crawling across the sitting room to where she sat drawing on the sofa. The memories it held, the city where it all started.

They spent the Saturday evening before the move chatting about the day as Charlie regaled her with everything that had happened at Sam's party. From tales of a bouncy castle to pass the parcel she could tell the party had been a hit with all the children. She knew if they hadn't been moving he would have asked for a superhero party that June to celebrate his own birthday, maybe she could still throw it for him?

The following day they packed the last few boxes into the car and moving van, a few tears were shed on Vesper's part as she said goodbye to where her son had grown from a young baby to become a bright young boy. Life was short, she of all people knew that as she was on her second life already, you had to cherish it.

A few hours and short stops later and they were there at the new house, it was roughly the same size as their Cambridge abode yet it was vastly different. They had made it though. After all these years she was finally back living in London.

It was mid afternoon by the time she had placed all the boxes in their respective rooms and Charlie had unpacked the box containing his favourite toys to play whilst his mum did boring adult things. He was anxious to go outside though, to go on the tube he loved so much and explore some of the parks to release some of the pent up energy a day's worth of travelling could cause.

"Come on then let's go." She smiled at her son as they exited at Hyde park corner and ran Ingo the large park.

The park was alive on the warm Sunday afternoon with football matches and cyclists basking in the rare British sunshine. She laughed as she tried to keep up with her son as he rushed towards Diana's playground, wanting to get the last remaining swing whilst it was still free. She spent a while watching him play before showing him the beauty of Kensington gardens, knowing he was finally tiring out and ready to go home.

"People swim in there mum?" He asked, pulling a face as they walked back past the serpentine on the way out of the park.

"Some do, it's actually cleaner than it looks." She told him as they walked out of the park's main gates.

"Ew that's eww." He said, making peals of laughter escape from her lips once more.

That was when she saw him. Her laughter ans breath felt lodged in her throat as he meandered through the crowd ahead of them, james bond was here. Her heart was beating so vigorously it was almost as though she could hear it pounding in her ears. The day they move and she somehow finds him on a whim. Yet he hadn't found them; despite how alert his profession had made him, he was still completely oblivious to the woman who was almost frozen in shock behind him. She was a ghost, a fragment of the past to him as he disappeared into the crowd once more. Feeling auth at her hand she looked down. Charlie.

"Mum?" He asked, causing vesper to snap out of her reverie and start walking into the tube station once more. She hadn't felt this thrown in a long time, why was it that he always had the ability to make her question her life and decisions.

After that she went through the evening routine on autopilot, he had aged in the almost six years since they had last seen each other. Well, from what she could tell with the brief glance she got of him.

Charlie didn't question her out of character behaviour outside the underground station, despite how she knew he was itching to know what had happened. Instead, he went through everything as normal and listened intently before nodding off as she read a half chapter of his book to him.

Breathing a sigh of relief she switched off his light, bathing the room in a veil of darkness. She walked across to her bedroom and looked out of the window at the bustling city. The city where she used to work, live, where she had studied and been forced to abandon after she came back from Venice as an alive woman. As not-Vesper.

As she sat on the bed, the busyness of their day finally caught up with her as she picked up Charlie's baby book which she had fished out of one of the boxes. She finally admitted it to herself as she sat and flicked through the pages to find a wallet filled with photos and letters slotted in the back. She was a coward, she knew her son needed to know his father but she was scared. James would be the cold hearted Bastard she prophesied him to be all those years ago on the train, he wouldn't be the sort to believe in ghosts. Let alone want to know one. She had to try for Charlie though.

Opening the wallet she began to read the letters, a comfort that lulled her to sleep as she read the familiar scrawl.

 _Dear James,_

 _So today I went for my 20 week scan..._

I am really sorry for the slight delay but I got caught up in work I had to do, thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far and I will try to update as soon as I can. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	3. Thoughts on a sighting

AN: I am so so so sorry about the delay of this chapter, and the fact that it isn't even that greater chapter. This is more of just a filler as I had block for a while and have been incredibly busy with school and life. I am hoping to get the next chapter up sooner though. Thank you for all the reviews and follows/ favourites though, they have given me the motivation over the past few days to actually get this down. 

* * *

Time seemed to fly by quicker as they got everything settled in their new home, London as forever alive and constant. A buzz that never seemed to die down like it did in Cambridge, yes the buzz always made her slightly wary of everything but she had been cautious in their previous home too. Who knew if White and Quantum would find out that she was no longer deceased. They may even use her son against her, so she would be damned if she did anything less than be the best mother she could without becoming to overbearing or sheltering the poor boy.

Charlie settled into the new routine quickly, easily falling into close friendships with the other children in his year. Of course, it being a private school, the smaller year group made it easier to make friends but with his charming personality and friendly nature Charlie Lynd was popular in no time. Sometimes it even disheartened his mother a little, to see her son growing up so quickly as she spent nights alone due to him being round someone else's house or the like. He was growing so quickly and she struggled to even document things sometimes for his father as she had done over the years. Her letters became few and far between as she half heartedly hoped she would run into his father again as she did by Hyde park station all those weeks ago, she still wrote them though especially since she knew he was still around. He was still alive.

 _13_ _th_ _May 2012_

 _Dear James,  
We moved to London today, and as things are still relatively hectic I thought I would make this letter rather short. I took Charlie to Hyde park today, I really was worried about how he would react to the move but he loves it here; honestly you would think this city has always been his home._

 _I saw you today, just by the tube station at Hyde Park corner. Only for a moment, but I still saw you. I probably should have ran over but I was frozen at just the sight of you, it has been nearly 6 years and you have barely changed. Charlie is good as I said, but I think he would be better if he were to know you. To have a father._

 _Vesper_

Maybe next time she would even talk to him instead of cowering away, letting him slip through her fingers like the water that had consumed her all those years ago. It became clearer to her everyday that despite her trying her hardest, Charlie needed more male presences in his life; from an early age he had been surrounded by women, whether it be her or his nanny Emily or teachers. He needed a male influence though, just to help him scope out the rest of his personality, to answer some of his more obscure queries that Vesper had no clue about whatsoever. The one constant question she would receive from him every so often was a simple one though, he hadn't seemed so bothered at first before he realised the big difference between him and the other children at nursery. It was only really in the last year that he had started asking where his dad was, of course he was happy with Vesper but he was so inquisitive he wanted to know why he had never met his father.

It was hard raising a son without a paternal influence in his life but she seemed to think she was just coping okay. She managed to organise a superhero party with only help from Charlie's new nanny and one of the mum's from Cambridge, and it was a hit with her now 5 year old so what else mattered. He was growing more and more every day, becoming more eloquent in his studies at school as the summer loomed ahead of them. She had found a nanny to look after him when she couldn't look after him as she only got 3 weeks off for holiday a year, but she would deal with that when the time came.

Ω

James constantly felt eyes on him, women, agents, enemies. They were all the same to him until they actively posed a threat or he sought out their eye contact, well nearly all of them almost felt the same. Her eyes usually felt different, somehow they were always calculating like the mathematician she was. He tried not to think of her anymore, with her came the anger. The vengeance.

Yes, she was somewhat at peace now, the last part of her lying in the Russian snow near her beloved and his betrayal, but she would always be with him. Lingering like the damp after the rain, like the water that stained his clothes after he failed to rescue her from Venice's murky waters. She stained his every thought despite how he tried to remove her from his mind. Women were disposable pleasures, his life became his work yet she was still there. He may be a cold hearted bastard, but he wasn't aiming to have a life outside of work. He had become what she predicted without realising but he didn't care. James Bond was the job and the job was him, that was all.

That's why he thought it odd on the afternoon after he had met Moneypenny on a London rooftop to discuss M's will to have that feeling of her eyes on him. Eyes long glazed over in a lifeless body shouldn't leave a feeling on him. She was gone. Dead. He couldn't feel her presence around the city as evidently she wasn't there and never would be since he left her in Venice all those years ago.

He was James Bond. Unfeeling, a killing machine who drank copious amounts of liquor and changed the woman in his bed as frequently as he changed the sheets. He wasn't stopped by the woman who haunted his past, she was just there in the background because M was gone. One of the few ties left in Mi6 to her was gone so of course he was on edge about her. Despite claims made by most, he was human and therefore was somehow affected by deaths despite how little he showed it.

He drank for days to get rid of the feeling of her eyes lingering on him at Hyde Park corner; she wasn't there so the feeling of her eyes on him shouldn't be there as well. He was immersed in the haze of whiskey when it was delivered, just a plain package with only his name on it. Shaking his head, he stood and retrieved it from his doormat; opening it he found only a case containing a DVD. No note on it, just a black case. He shrugged, sliding it into the DVD slot of his TV, assuming it was probably some form of CCTV footage he had to occupy his time until his next mission.

The bright blue of the loading screen was all that illuminated his sparse sitting room, he had no need for personal effects when it would eventually become destroyed. It was all useless and trivial so it was just easier to own the basic furniture, that way if an enemy agent did track down his place they would know nothing about him. Not that there was anyone to use against him though, he learnt the hard way that you couldn't even trust those you loved. Downing the rest of the glass, he looked up just as the footage on the disk loaded with a message from a familiar face.

"Bond, if you are watching this then I am dead.."


	4. A trip to the science museum

He had watched the tape countless times, he understood the instructions it held the first time but he needed to see if she was lying. Vesper was alive. The woman he had mourned for years, had finally let go as the necklace dropped in the Russian snow. She was alive. M knew, and she was alive but this couldn't be true. He would have found out somehow that she wasn't dead, as after all it had been just over 5 years since she was declared dead. 5 years, and no one had slipped up? She must have been just saying it just so he would definitely follow her orders to track down Marco Sciarra but what did Vesper have to do with it all? Maybe she was some kind of part of the puzzle to whatever syndicate Sciarra belonged to, either way he would have to remove Sciarra first before he did any digging into whatever should sit and stay in his past.

He spent weeks, planning how to remove the threat of Sciarra. Months, learning about Spectre and how Oberhauser always seemed to be one step ahead of him. How Oberhauser had eyes around the world, watching his every move, the sociopath even had a friend in MI6 with C. Then he met her. Dr Madeleine Swann, daughter of Mr White, the man who had controlled Vesper Lynd with her 'boyfriend' Yusef's 'kidnapping', the man who was head of Quantum was yet another pawn in the game of Spectre.

Madeleine was different though, she wanted no part in the criminal world, wanted no place in the world of spies she had been born into. She loathed him, loathed everything that he stood for but not for the same reasons that Vesper had. Vesper. She had remained in his mind since M had told him in that tape that she was alive. If he was honest with himself, then when he asked Moneypenny to research into who the pale king was, he would have asked her to investigate Vesper. Find her on cctv footage, put his mind to rest over whether she was still alive.

Vesper sighed, looking at the clock. 3am. 3am and she still hadn't gotten to sleep, rolling over she climbed out of bed to walk down to her office down the hall. Charlie was still asleep and would be for at least four more hours. It was half term so he didn't have to be up for school anyway, she could let him stay in later even if she couldn't do that herself. She might even have to call in sick as she won't be able to do her job properly whilst suffering from sleep deprivation. Not even just the sleep deprivation of that night but from the past week. All because of him. James bloody bond. She had been restless ever since she saw him on that first day by Kensington, it took that little from him to cause her undoing. She wanted to see him again, she wanted him to know, to meet his son. Of course this wouldn't happen though. The universe wasn't that kind.

Getting on with the basic level of reports she had to complete, she worked until 8:30 when she texted the nanny and rang work to say she wouldn't be in. By nine, Charlie was up and wondering in, rubbing at his eyes as he plodded in clad in Spider-Man pyjamas.

"Mama, are you not at work today?" he asked with a frown, climbing into her lap.

"No sweetie, I was feeling a little poorly this morning so I thought I would stay with you as you make me feel better." She hummed, kissing the tired boy's forehead.

"Yaaay, please can we go to the science museum and the park?" He asked, hugging her tightly.

"Of course my darling boy, breakfast first though. Well will also go out to lunch too." She smiled, following him as he bounded through the door and downstairs. It would be a good day today.

It was his first proper day of retirement and of course Madeleine had to be called into her new clinic, mi6 had pulled a few strings and now she was one of the leading psychiatrists at a private clinic in the city. He had far too much time now that he didn't know what to do, all he had was the gym to stay in shape. Instead, he had decided to laugh at the errors made in the mi6 exhibition in the science museum and to see the vehicles they had on show that he loved to see when he was a boy.

Entering the flight exhibition he was transported back to his youth, a memory of his parents bringing him to see the aeroplanes at this museum. Back then he was enthralled by it all, a dream of maybe becoming a pilot, life is endless at the age of six. Hearing a voice, he looked up to see a boy rushing across the permanent exhibition towards a seaplane. He was drawn to the boy for some reason, he carried an air of familiarity to him. He had never seen the boy yet he felt as though he knew him, glancing across slightly he saw the silhouette of the boy's mother. Her. M was right.

Standing up, he walked across the room, approaching the woman who had plagued his mind since her 'death'. He stared, grabbing her wrist as she looked up to see the man who had hold of her.

"James." She whispered.


End file.
